


all I need is a place to lie

by addandsubtract



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, Minor Character Death, Pre-Slash, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-14
Updated: 2010-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-25 19:53:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/addandsubtract/pseuds/addandsubtract
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Joshua Ray joins the paratroopers, he tells his ma that the extra fifteen dollars will do them some good – what with there being another baby on the way, and the war leaving everybody cutting corners.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all I need is a place to lie

**Author's Note:**

> pseudo-band of brothers au, written for the [combat_jack](http://combat-jack.livejournal.com/) night and day challenge over on livejournal!
> 
> (there's also a mix, [here](http://addandsubtract.livejournal.com/51794.html), for those of you who want something to listen to while you read.)

When Joshua Ray joins the paratroopers, he tells his ma that the extra fifteen dollars will do them some good – what with there being another baby on the way, and the war leaving everybody cutting corners. It’s true enough, but all Ray can think about is that there is no better way to get out of bumfuck Missouri than to join the war effort. No more tilling the fields while the sun rises at his back – instead, he’ll be killing Nazis and getting paid for it, all the way on the other side of the Atlantic.

Ray’s never even been outside of Missouri before.

His ma cries a little, but he’s not sure if it’s joy or fear or something else entirely. It’s hard to tell with his ma. His father just sits at the head of the dinner table that night and says grace with extra vigor – “and keep our boy safe, when he does leave our house,” he adds at the end. Ray thinks about the uniform still hanging in his father’s closet. They don’t talk about the Great War much, but Ray knows enough to know that his father can’t bear to talk about it more than he doesn’t want to.

“Amen,” he says, and looks at his sister’s head bowed over her plate, and his father already reaching for the spinach, and his ma watching his father. Home sweet home, where no one talks over the evening meal and everyone goes to bed early.

Ray can’t wait to leave.

 

+

 

“Go, go, go! Don’t you dare slow down! You think the Germans will care if you’re tired?”

“No, but at least we’re allowed to shoot them,” Ray mutters, mostly out of breath and still sore from the last week’s worth of runs and obstacles and pushups.

“What was that, Corporal Person?” Ray almost rolls his eyes, despite the sharp tone. Schwetje is such an imbecile. Everyone thinks so. Ray maybe more than most of the others.

“I said, no, but at least we’re allowed to shoot the Germans, sir.” Ray is still out of breath; the words come out much thinner than he means them to, thready. Brad is leading the pack as always, the bastard – Ray hates him half the time. Everything comes so easily to him that he makes the rest of them look lazy. A glance to his left, though, finds Walt still running beside him, face flushed with exertion.

“Latrine duty, Person. Again,” Schwetje says, and for a moment Ray thinks that he’s getting off pretty easily. He ends up cleaning the latrines more often than not, but at least he’s used to it. Then, of course, Schwetje opens his mouth again. “Oh, and I’m revoking all weekend passes. I’m sure the rest of your platoon will understand.”

Ray winces as the disappointed groans make their way up from the back. He distinctly hears Stafford mutter, “That’s screwby.” Walt slides him a look.

“What?” Ray asks, like he doesn’t know.

“You think he’s an idiot, and yet here you are, getting our passes revoked for the third week in a row.” Walt shakes his head, disappointed, and Ray feels a pang of guilt. One day, he’s going to learn to keep his fucking trap shut. Now, though, he just watches Walt pull determinedly ahead of him, and sighs, settling in to look at Walt’s back all the way up the mountain.

 

+

 

They put the launch off, and then they put it off again.

“Jesus H,” Ray says. “When’re they going to let us at the Krauts already?” He’s frustrated, and though his ma spent most of her life telling him to watch his mouth, the lesson never properly sank in. They’ve been dirt-smudged and suited up for two days now, and still the HQ is complaining about the weather. Ray sits in his rack, and rubs his hand back and forth over the short buzz of his haircut.

Brad snorts from his pallet. “When the pilots can fly the planes over Normandy and still be able to see the objective.” Brad’s propped up against his bag, reading a book. Ray can’t see the cover, but it’s probably fucking _Art of War_ , or some shit. Brad’s that type – college educated, well spoken. He’s got none of the drawl that Walt and Trombley and Ray have.

Ray’s glad that Brad’s his team leader, despite how irritatingly perfect he is. He’s at least a good three steps more competent than their company commander. Schwetje hasn’t improved much since boot camp. Ray likes to think that he has, though.

Their platoon commander is a new guy, not to the service, but someone they haven’t worked with yet. Everyone else has pretty much been around through boot camp. Brad hasn’t had anything overtly negative to say about team meetings, but it is sometimes hard to tell with him. Nate Fick, Ray is sure, can’t be any worse that Schwetje. And without a doubt he’s a hell of a lot prettier.

“Sure,” Ray says, and he understands, whatever, it’s foggy. He just wants to be in the shit, already. Enough of this hurry-up-and-wait. “Aren’t you supposed to be all-powerful, Brad? Bending the weather to your will?”

Brad doesn’t even bother to answer, which doesn’t surprise Ray much. Walt laughs, though, and rolls his eyes.

“Don’t you ever have anything better to do than back-talk?” Walt’s not annoyed, just amused. Ray can tell because he’s still sprawled out on the ground, reading the most recent letter from his parents. If he was actually angry, Ray would probably be in a little more trouble; Walt isn’t huge, but Ray’s managed to get out of boot camp and still be pretty scrawny.

“If I did, don’t you think we’d have seen someplace other than the base every once in awhile?” Walt just shakes his head and returns to his letter. Brad’s reading, and Trombley is probably off killing small animals somewhere. Ray fidgets for a few minutes, rubbing his palms over his thighs, cracking his knuckles, rolling his shoulders. “Fuck it,” he says, after what couldn’t be more than seven minutes. “Someone’s gotta be playing poker somewhere.”

“Try not to lose all your cigarettes to Chaffin, this time,” Walt says. “You still owe me.”

“Sure, sure,” Ray says, and stands, dusting himself off. Someone, somewhere, is doing something interesting, and Ray’s going to find him.

 

+

 

“Team one alpha, circle back behind, one bravo, you attack from the left flank. Two and three should provide cover from here, and here,” Fick says, pointing at the map spread out on the table. About three-fourths of the guys have shown up, unwounded and ready to go, and they’ve gathered in the ruins of what used to be a barn. The other companies are spread out in other buildings around them, each trying to locate and collect their own missing men. Ray’s tired and hungry; it’s been a hard day and a half since Normandy.

He supposes that he should count himself lucky – he’s still alive, which is more than Christopher or Baptista can say. His plane wasn’t hit on the way down. He’s tried to imagine what that would be like – all he can really come up with is that it would be a total drag. To die and not even be a fucking war hero.

Ray’s pretty sure he’s too tired to be feeling very emotional at the moment. Maybe if they were handing out rations. Maybe then.

“I know you’re tired,” Fick says, like he’s reading Ray’s mind. The softly muttered words of complaining men cut out at the sound of his voice. His face is open and earnest; half of Ray wants to heckle him, but the other half is afraid he’d start crying or something. He looks like a baby. “I know you haven’t had a chance to rest, and many of you haven’t had anything to eat. But the Captain’s asked this of us, and we have our orders. Suit up, everyone.”

Brad’s standing by the doorway, all his gear already situated. “You heard the man,” he says. “Hop to it.”

“But Brad,” Ray says, “I haven’t put my clean pair of briefs on.”

Brad doesn’t even roll his eyes. He says, “Shut up, Ray,” and exits the room.

Walt’s not back, yet. Ray hopes they find him soon.

 

+

 

They don’t lose anyone else on the mission. It’s a relief, and one that they won’t always have. Ray shoots at two Germans, and hits one of them right in the middle of the chest. After, he can still see the spray of blood, the way it stained the front of the soldier’s uniform dark red and shiny, the way he’d looked down at the ruins of his own chest cavity and realized he was about to die.

It’s the look on his face then that Ray can’t stop thinking about. If he does die here, he doesn’t want to have time to know it. He doesn’t want to look down and see his intestines spilling out over his hands. He’d rather get shot right in the head and just be done.

When they get back to camp, Brad claps him on the shoulder, as if to say _good job_ without having to actually speak the words. Ray snorts, jolted back into the normalcy of Brad being Brad, and goes to dig his foxhole. He’ll only have Trombley watching his back tonight, so he makes sure to dig it right.

 

+

 

“Go on,” Walt says. “Get it the fuck over with.” He’s wincing already, and there’s nothing Ray can do right now but watch.

“What a bunch of imbeciles,” Ray says, just to have something to say. “Can’t even get their orders right, so they spread half the fucking company over the entire coast.” His fists clench without his express orders to, and he wonders how many of the people in this infirmary wouldn’t be here if the landing had actually been planned correctly. Officers, always keeping them from doing their fucking jobs.

It took two entire days, but Walt made it back – obviously hurt, and riding in with a rag tag bunch of guys from other companies. He’d found Rudy, though, somehow, and they’d both made it.

“Shut up, Ray,” Walt says, through gritted teeth. Doc says nothing, just returns to his careful stitches. Ray’s doing his level best not to look directly at Walt’s bared thigh, the blood seeping from what must be a two-day-old graze, the thick black thread winding through it, tying it back together. Walt is gripping the edge of the bed with both hands, looking directly at Ray’s face. His complexion has paled out almost entirely, except for the spots of color reddening his cheeks. It makes him look feverish, though Doc has given him a clean bill of health, other than the graze.

Walt hisses under his breath, and Ray swears that his fingers clench tighter on the edge of the table, and then Doc’s knotting off the thread, cutting the end carefully short with his scissors.

“The worst part,” Walt says, sounding annoyed more than anything else, “is that it wasn’t even the Germans who shot me. It was some fucking scared kid from Fox Company who didn’t even think to use the pass codes. Can you fucking believe that?”

The sad part is, Ray can. “Look at it this way, m’man. You still get a scar to impress the ladies with when you get back to your home turf, even if it was from some moronic seventeen year-old enlistee. It’s not like you have to tell them the truth or anything.”

The words earn Ray a half smile and a small chuckle, which is enough for him.

“C’mon, Person,” Doc says. “You get him back to his rack, and see that he doesn’t rip his stitches. He does and I’m blaming you.”

Ray rolls his eyes. “Yes, sir.”

 

+

 

The days are filled with mud, and shooting, and digging holes in the mud and then shooting from them. Not nearly enough grub, next to no jerking off, and no ladies. It isn’t exactly fun, but all in all, it could be worse. There could be no jerking off at all.

“Trombley, Person, you two check out the far side of that farmhouse. Stay in the cover of the trees – there could be a sniper.” Brad’s voice is as impassive as ever, though he does clap Ray on the shoulder as he passes.

“Good luck to you too, Brad,” Ray mutters, though he’s not exactly being sarcastic. Trombley doesn’t say anything at all, but then again, Trombley is sociopath.

The underbrush isn’t dry enough to crackle underneath their feet, but the leaves press into the soil with a small squelch. The sunlight filters through the canopy in green stripes, sliding across and then off of Trombley’s face as he creeps forward. He signals Ray to take the left; Ray doesn’t bother to nod, just stays close to the trunks of the trees.

This close, Ray can see signs that the farmhouse has been at least mostly empty for some time now – there are two visibly broken windows, one on the ground floor and one on the second floor. Those that are still intact have fogged over with dirt, and one of the porch steps is sagging rather dramatically. The front door swings slightly open and then closed again with the force of the breeze.

This doesn’t, however, mean that no one is inside right now. This is the part that Ray hates. Give him a line dug out in the dirt and a place to look – this could-it-could-it-not shit just leaves him tense and anxious; he can feel the ball of it in his stomach like a clenched fist. Moving forward, however, is his job.

It’s almost a relief when the shot rings out. It whizzes past Ray’s head close enough that he can hear it buzz in his ear like a mosquito.

“Shit!” Trombley says, and there’s another shot, this one farther away. “Sniper!” Trombley doesn’t sound scared, just angry, and Ray has to hand it to him. He’s a sociopath, but he still manages to be a good soldier.

“Fall back,” Brad barks, words clipped off at the end. “Ray, alert battalion about the sniper.”

“Yes, sir,” Ray says, and pulls the radio off of his back. He glances back over his shoulder, but he still can’t see the sniper at all.

 

+

 

Ray doesn’t remember very much about Holland. More mud and more holes dug into it. Swaths and swaths of orange cloth displayed proudly from the sills of windows and the frames of doors. Dour faces of men and women tired of soldiers, and rightly so.

Mostly, he remembers Poke yelling for a medic halfway through his night patrol. He remembers Poke dragging Lilley back into camp, half supporting him, and the moment when he realized just how badly Lilley was bleeding. He’d watched Doc rip away Lilley’s uniform, noting the chunk of flesh missing from his neck, the seeping hole in his chest. The bandages couldn’t keep all the blood back; it rolled down the side of his neck, and pooled onto the table under him.

Poke couldn’t stop pacing, ranting about the German patrol that had cornered them on the high road, but Ray wasn’t listening to a word he was saying. No one was. They were all too busy watching the color slowly drain from Lilley’s face, the stutter of his breath, the wet click of air sticking in his lungs.

“It’s okay, buddy,” Doc said, though Ray could see the tension in his body, all of him coiled like an angry snake with nowhere to strike. “You’re fine, it’ll be fine.”

And Lilley, still leaking blood onto the tabletop, managed a laugh. “You’re such a liar, Doc,” he said, the words coming slow, breathy. He swung his head to the side, staring up into Doc’s face, his cheek smashed against the wood table, his own blood smearing up onto his skin. “But thanks anyway.”

In the corner of his eye, Ray could see Brad holding onto Poke’s shoulders and leaning down to speak calmly, making eye contact. But Ray wasn’t paying attention to Poke, who’d stopped moving entirely the moment Brad touched him. He was watching the blood drip off the edge of the table. He was watching Lilley convulse. He was watching Lilley die.

He doesn’t remember much else about Holland.

 

+

 

Fick has this pinched look to his face when he tells them their next orders. Ray glances at Brad, who doesn’t have any more expression on his face than he normally does, but Ray doesn’t think he’s exaggerating the tension in Brad’s shoulders, either. Fick isn’t particularly good at pretending to like the things they all know are idiotic, but he does his best anyway.

“I’d feel better about this whole thing if it wasn’t winter,” Walt mutters under his breath. It doesn’t matter if he’s directing the comment at Ray or not; Ray nods along, and tries not to take Fick’s glance at Gunny as a sign of the shit to come.

It’s winter all right, no bones about it, and Ray doubts they’re going to get any more preparation than they already have. There’s been no snow yet, not in France, not in the awful trudge across Holland, and not now, in Belgium. It’s just a matter of waiting it out, though. There’s plenty of bite in the air, and Ray knows he’s going to wish for a heavier coat soon enough.

“Have faith in the larger plan, Walt,” Ray says, and snorts. Walt rolls his eyes. They both know that while there probably is a larger plan, it doesn’t involve taking the easy road. Battalion isn’t going to give up ground just to spare lives. “It’ll be just like camping.”

“Shut up,” Trombley hisses at them. “The LT’s giving us our orders.”

“You’re such a fucking teacher’s pet, Trombley,” Ray hisses right back. It’s not exactly mature, but Ray can’t stand that sort of thing. Walt nudges him hard in the rib cage, and Ray shuts up.

Fick’s going on about the defensive position, how spread out they’re going to be on the line, and Ray shifts his weight. Yeah, exactly like camping.

 

+

 

“Your gun’s shaking,” Trombley sounds like he’s talking about what’s for dinner, his voice entirely impassive. Ray shoots him an annoyed look.

“Yeah, I can see that, thanks.” The truth is, Ray can’t stop shivering. He doesn’t remember what it feels like not to be cold, anymore. “Keep your eyes on the line, idiot.”

Trombley just grunts, but he turns away, anyway, bending back over the sight of his gun. Ray would rub his hands together, try to keep them from shaking, but he’s not sure if he can even uncurl his fingers from around the trigger. It’s fucking cold, and the sunshine isn’t helping at all – it filters through the snow and evergreen branches until the whole line, foxhole after foxhole, is bathed in an almost ethereal light. Cold, but beautiful. It’s a small comfort, at this point. And it certainly won’t keep Ray’s hands warm.

“When do we get chow, Brad?” Ray hollers down the line. Brad’s only a foxhole over, sharing with Walt, but the yelling gets Ray’s blood moving. The trees creak all around them, the wind dusting already-fallen snow onto their heads.

“Probably whenever you stop complaining, Ray,” Brad yells back.

“Which means never.” Walt’s voice is amused, even though it’s shaking a little with the cold. “In case you hadn’t guessed.”

Ray peers over, and he can see Walt’s helmet and gun, the curve of his cheeks, and his lips, chapped and red from the cold. Ray’s glad he gave Walt his gloves. Walt’s from further south than he is; he’s completely unprepared for the cold, and it could be worse. It could be snowing right now.

Last time it snowed, Stafford had wandered over the line and literally right onto an entrenched German camp. He’d almost stepped into their fire. He was fucking lucky he didn’t get shot – he’s still laughing about it, like it’s something to be proud of. A story to send home in his next letter to his dearest parents, or his sweetheart. Ray’s already heard it three times. Once was enough, honestly. It’s kind of sickening to think that it’s so easy to wander over the line and not be noticed at all.

“Walt, if you keep making fun of me, I’m going to take my gloves back,” he says, and laughs. He won’t, though.

 

+

 

The trees are exploding. All around him, shattering into sharp splinters, moving fast enough to prick his skin. He hunkers down into his foxhole and covers his head, makes sure to keep his eyes closed.

“Walt?” he asks, though he’s not sure if his voice even carries over the booming mortars, the crash of falling branches. Ray can feel his teeth clack together, and he presses his knees against the cold ground, as if he can hold it in place. “Walt! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” Walt’s voice is right behind him, and Ray manages to look over his shoulder in time to see Walt sliding down into the foxhole with him, holding his helmet on his head with one hand, and other covering his nose and mouth. “I’m here. It’s fine.”

Ray doesn’t breathe a sigh of relief. He does pull Walt toward him with a hand on the back of his jacket, looping an arm around his shoulders and pushing them down to the bottom of the foxhole. It won’t do them any good if they’re hit directly, but this close, Ray can feel Walt breathe against his neck, breath warm even against the cold air, and even if the world is coming down around them, Ray knows he’s not the only one here. Not the only one gritting his teeth against the shaking of the ground all around them.

When the smoke clears, Garza’s dead, not even enough of him left to bury. Chaffin’s missing most of his left arm, and T half his hearing. Fick picks his way through the wreckage, helping lift tree branches out of foxholes, making sure that no one is about to go nuts. His face is shuttered closed, which Ray can only take as an expression of pain. Ray watches him talk to Brad, both of them serious and quiet, and tries not to move too much. Walt has dirt in his hair, and Ray’s just glad that’s the worst of it for them. For now.

 

+

 

The snow crunches underneath Ray’s boots as he creeps forward, keeping the back of Brad’s head in sight. It snowed again the night before, and everything is bright, the sunlight reflecting against the white in a way that makes them mostly blind. They’re all waiting for the next mortar attack, but they have to scope out the town they’re supposed to be invading, so there’s no choice, really, but to chance it.

Brad signals them forward, and Ray takes careful steps. He’d walked into a hidden snowdrift earlier, and his trousers are soaked to the mid-calf with melted snow.

The first boom takes them all by surprise. It shouldn’t, really.

“Take cover!” Brad’s voice booms just as loudly, and they all dive for the trees. No time to dig, not now, and Ray just hopes they’re not being specifically targeted. Ray scrambles across the ground, belly against the snow, and thinks about nothing at all. Get to low ground, he knows, so he does his best.

It’s not enough.

He feels the impact before the pain. The force of it tosses him against the trunk of the tree just behind him; he hits it hard enough that the air is knocked out of his lungs, and he just lies there, face down on the ground, trying to catch his breath.

“Oh, fuck,” he says, because just when he can breathe again the pain starts. Searing, ripping up his calf like the skin is charring and burning and turning black. He doesn’t want to look. He won’t look, he won’t. “Oh, fuck, fuck, _fuck_ me. God _dammit_!”

There’s the thud of footsteps, someone running heedless of the mortars still crashing all around them, and then there are hands on both of his shoulders, touching him, making sure he’s still there. He knows that it’s Brad before Brad even starts yelling. “ _Medic_! Someone get me a fucking medic over here!”

“It’s my leg, isn’t it, Brad?” Ray can’t keep the shaking out of his voice. “It’s gone, isn’t it? My leg?” He still can’t look. There’s just the searing pain and the warmth starting just below his left knee, and if he doesn’t look, it won’t be real.

“Yes.” Brad’s voice is quiet, even over the mortars, and when Ray looks at his face, Brad’s mouth is pursed into a flat line.

“Oh, oh, fuck,” Ray says. His head thunks back against the ground. The pine needles rain down on them, and Brad waits with him for the jeep to come.

“Stay with me, Ray.” Brad voice is a warning, a growl. He adds, yelling out into the snow and ash and burning wood, “Where the fuck is that jeep?”

Ray’s hazy after that, though he knows that his fingers are still cold. There’s still pain. He can feel the sunlight filtering through the needles as they move with the force of the wind, or the explosions, or maybe both. Neither. He’s not sure anymore.

He remembers the stretcher, he remembers –

“Keep on eye on Walt for me, Brad,” he says, watching Brad’s face, unresponsive and worried. “I want those gloves back next time I see him.”

And then he remembers laughing.

 

+

 

The days after that are snatches of time and lucidity. There are a lot of bumpy roads and bloodied bandages and the high-flying feeling of morphine. He could hear the bone saw crunch down on what was left of his leg, though he doesn’t remember much else. Just that crunching. They’d only had local anesthesia.

It’s the pain that wakes him, finally, and the first thing he sees is a blank ceiling. It’s morning, or daytime, at least – he can tell by the play of shadows on the white paint. Everything is too bright, and he knows just by the smell that he’s in a hospital. His leg hurts, and the bottom of his foot is itching, only – fuck, it isn’t at all, is it? Phantom limb.

Ray looks down to the sheet pulled up over his waist, tucked neatly into the mattress on both sides. There’s the lump of his right leg, there’s the conspicuous flatness where the left should be. There’s his knee, there’s his lack-of-calf. He sucks a breath in through his teeth and lets his head thud back against the pillow. He wants to scream; he can feel it bubbling up in his lungs like caustic fluid, so he closes his eyes and holds his breath until there are sparks lighting off underneath his eyelids. When he opens them, there’s a nurse approaching his bed with a banana bag and a syringe. Someone, somewhere, is moaning softly, and the sound makes Ray shudder. The nurse gives him a knowing glance.

“I see you’re awake,” she says. She’s British, and relatively high-class at that, given her accent. “It’s about time.”

Ray wants to snap something uncharitable, but instead he just stares at her, silent. She sighs, and starts to efficiently change the fluid bag attached to his arm.

“We’re going to have to start weaning you off of the morphine, soon,” she says, almost conversational. “It’s not fun, but it is necessary.”

“How soon is soon?” He can’t help asking, just like he can’t help staring at the syringe she’s still holding.

“Now that you’re awake, two to three days,” she says. She sticks the syringe into one of the other tubes leading into Ray’s body, and Ray holds his tongue, waiting for the floaty, painless feeling to hit him. It doesn’t take long.

“Where am I?” he asks, finally. The nurse laughs, shaking her head. She’s not being cruel, but Ray hates her for it anyway.

“You’re in England,” she says, “in hospital. You’ll be here for a while.”

 

+

 

Coming down off the morphine is one of the most painful things Ray has ever experienced, outside of losing his leg. He tries to think about Brad and Walt and the rest of them, how they might be dead now, or wounded, or still stuck in the snow, but he only really gets as far as his own throbbing pain, and how they won’t give him drugs for it.

About four days in, he starts composing letters to Walt and Brad in his head. He stares at the ceiling and tries to ignore the shuffling of the nurses, the moaning and sniffling of the man on the cot next to his. There’s no one to talk to. He hasn’t been this quiet since before he enlisted, and he’s reminded of how much he hates it.

 _Dearest Walt_ , he starts. _I hope you’re not dead. I wouldn’t know, as I’m stuck in the fucking hospital for good, or at least until they can ship me back to the States. Everything hurts, but I guess that’s not what you want to hear, huh? Yeah, well, fuck you. Love, Ray-Ray_.

Even Ray’s letters don’t end well.

Sometimes it’s all Ray can do not to scream. If he could walk, he’d be out of here so fast they wouldn’t even have time to sign the discharge papers. Bleeding or not, healed or not, every minute he’s in this hospital is one minute he’s not out there, in the shit, making sure that Walt doesn’t die of frostbite and Trombley doesn’t go postal and start shooting friendlies. He’s nothing here – just a broken body that can’t even piss without help.

 _Dear Brad_ , he mouths to himself. _Keep them safe. Make sure that Schwetje doesn’t get everyone killed, and, fuck. Just don’t die, okay? Love, Ray_.

 

+

 

“I said, just get me some goddamned crutches, okay?” Ray can hear the growl in his own voice, something he’s not entirely used to, but the nurse obviously is. She puts her hands on her hips and rolls her eyes.

“And I said, not until the doctor okays it, Corporal.” She’s firm, and Ray might be on the cusp of throwing a tantrum, but she’s probably had to deal with those, too. Ray just leans back against his pillows and seethes. His leg throbs in time with the beat of his heart, and he wants nothing more than to be out of this bed. But the wound isn’t anywhere close to healed and, Ray supposes, they’re worried about him popping stitches. Sensible things – infection, disease.

Ray, for his part, can’t even pretend to be nice or even-tempered. He balls his hands into the sheets just to keep from taking a swing at her.

“I can’t be in this bed anymore,” he says, voice so tight it sounds like it’s going to snap.

“You’re just going to have to stand it, Corporal,” the nurse says. “Because you’re not going anywhere without permission.”

Ray forces himself to nod, biting his tongue so hard that he draws blood. He tastes copper when he swallows, but it fits his mood.

 

+

 

Ray dreams of digging foxholes. The ground is cold, and wet, and every time he digs a little of it caves in until he’s up to his knees in churned mud. He keeps digging, dirt caking his knuckles, lodged underneath his fingernails, and he knows the mortars will be coming soon and so he has to be ready.

Then he’s on the line, and it’s snowing. Brad and Walt and Trombley are all asleep, but when Ray touches Walt’s face, his skin is cold. He could be dead, he has to be dead, but – when the bombs start to hit, Ray has no choice but to slide into the foxhole next to Walt’s cold body. He’s so cold.

The sun wakes Ray up, streaming through his window. He’s shivering, and the room is cold, the winter seeping in around the edges of the doors and windows. Ray stays perfectly still long enough to get his breathing under control.

 _Dear Walt_ , he thinks, _stay the fuck out of my dreams_.

 

+

 

It takes them a month, but he’s finally put on a boat back to the States. All Ray can think is that he’s never felt so alone in his life. He’s surrounded by nurses and sailors and doctors and crippled soldiers, but no one he went through boot camp with. No one who complained while they were on latrine duty together, no one who saw Lilley die on a dirty table, no one who was there in a hole while the trees exploded.

Ray remembers Missouri, before the war, and how he never needed anybody at all. Not so, now. Trapped in a bed in the hold, bandage after bloody bandage, tray after tray of shitty cafeteria food.

He takes to humming, and then singing, to keep himself company. _You Are My Sunshine_ , and _Swing Low, Sweet Chariot_ , and all the lullabies his ma used to sing to him when he was sick.

By the time they land he’s taken to singing what popular songs he can remember from before he shipped out. If nothing else, it keeps him distracted from the pain.

 

+

 

“You’re never going to walk the same,” the doctor says, portly around the middle and losing his hair on top. As if Ray doesn’t already fucking _know_ that. “And you might not run, you might not be able to play baseball or climb a tree, but if you get through the therapy, you’ll be able to move around on your own. You’ll be independent, and I know how much that means to you boys.”

Ray tries not to snort or scowl. He tries not to think, _what makes you think you know anything about me?_ , because there’s no point. As much as Ray hates it with all of his guts, he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do from here.

“Okay,” he says, and he sounds a little sullen, but it’s better than the shouting he wants to be doing.

“Okay?” The doctor is apparently expecting some shouting, or something, because he’s leaning forward a little in his chair. Ray digs his fingers into the sheets so as not to lash out, and stares at the place where his calf should be until he can get himself under control.

“What do you want me to do? Start crying? Demand that you reattach my leg? I’d sooner slit my own throat than beg you for anything.” His voice is too harsh. The doctor’s mouth sets into a hard line, and he stands abruptly, straightening his coat.

“We’ll get you started in the morning,” he says, and then he leaves.

Ray just looks down at his bed. In his mind, he’s flexing his foot, feeling each individual toe stretch. The white sheet doesn’t move.

 

+

 

He doesn’t see the doctor much after that. The nurses take over his primary care, coaching him through physical therapy, checking his stats, keeping an eye on him. He does cry, more than once, from the frustration and the pain. The days blur together into hour after hour of muscle building exercises and stretches.

 _Dear Walt_ , Ray thinks to himself. _Everything still hurts, only this is worse, since it’s supposed to be healing me. I’m pretty sure it’s a lie. I don’t know where you are right now, but it can’t be any worse than this. Love, Ray_

Ray would rather be back in Bastogne. He’d rather be huddled in a hole in the ground, freezing his ass off.

At least there he had something to fight. Something to defend himself against. Here, there’s just the gnawing knowledge that he’ll never walk again, not really, and that all the exercises in the world aren’t going to bring back what he lost.

Still, he smiles for the nurses, asks them if they are currently engaged, or at least dating, waits for them to blush. Life goes on, with or without him. Winter is almost over.

 

+

 

Things go on this way for some time. Ray loses track of the months, tracks the passage of time only in the movement of the sun and the strength of his leg muscles. One of these moves too fast, the other too slow. He’s not the only one here long term, not the only one missing an arm or a leg. He doesn’t feel special, or worse off; there’s no point. Doesn’t mean he’s happy about it, either.

He’s laid out on a mat on the floor in the PT room, cursing under his breath as he does his stretches. He’s getting better at the crutches, but after spending so long immobile, he’s having a hard time regaining muscle. He’d never been idle for that long, before.

Regina, one of the nurses, is watching him carefully. She leans down to adjust his posture, and it makes the muscles in his thighs tremble with the effort.

“Good,” she says. One of the other nurses summons her from the hallway, and she adds, “You keep doing that, I’ll be right back.”

Ray doesn’t pay her much mind. As one of the head nurses in the PT department, she’s often getting called away to answer questions or fix patient situations. He gets about ten or eleven more stretches in before she comes back, her stride confident on the echoing tile floor.

“Corporal Person?” He looks up at her formal speech; she doesn’t often call him anything at all, though when she has to she just calls him Ray. He’s not sure he’s ever heard her say his real title before. “You have a visitor.”

“A – what?” Ray pushes himself up on his hands. He wrote his folks to let them know he’s alive, but they don’t have the means to visit him at the moment. They made sure he knew that he’s welcome at home once he gets out of the hospital, but Ray didn’t write them assuming that they’d come to his aid. He just didn’t want them to think he’d died.

He’s not sure exactly who he’s expecting, maybe Brad, maybe not, but it’s Walt who walks through the doorway. He looks – nervous, but much less gaunt than the last time Ray saw him, and more tan besides. He’s smiling sheepishly and straightening his uniform. There are bags under his eyes, but other than that he looks good. Healthy.

“Hey, Ray,” he says. “Not expecting me, I suppose.” His voice is flippant, but Ray knows him well enough to know that he’s fighting down his nerves. He’s not sure Ray even wants to see him.

“Not expecting you, no,” Ray says. “What the hell, Walt, you’re back in the States and you didn’t tell me?”

Walt laughs, and shrugs. “Haven’t been back long. Wasn’t really sure how to find you at first, either.”

Ray wonders if Walt has looked yet. “Well, you found me,” he says.

 

+

 

Regina doesn’t let Ray out of PT any earlier, so Walt sticks around and watches. Ray tries not to be self-conscious, and actually manages pretty well. He’s has some time to get used to it.

After, Regina sets him in a wheelchair, and lets Walt take him for a spin. The sunshine is the color of early summer. The air smells like leaves and pollen and not at all like sanitized hospital. Ray tries not to bask in it, and in this he mostly fails. He doesn’t get out much.

Walt parks them by a bench in the gardens out back, next to a huge rosebush and behind an even larger fountain. The grounds, it looks like, are similarly enormous, with footpaths running from building to building. Ray isn’t as interested in this as he is in the feel of the sun on his face and shoulders. It’s not snowing, he’s not shivering, and Walt is standing next to him, tan and healthy.

Walt’s looking at him, though, trying to be stealthy about it. He’s still got one hand on the handle of the wheelchair, and he’s facing forward, toward the fountain. Ray sees his eyes when they scan over him, however. He’s not fooled.

“Why’re you here, exactly?” Ray asks. His tone is the slightest bit hostile, simply because his voice always is, but he’s genuinely curious.

“You said yourself, I owe you your gloves back.” Walt laughs, and Ray tries out a chuckle. It sounds wrong in his own ears. Walt shakes his head. “You’ll have to go home eventually, and I just thought. You might want some help. Or maybe just some company.”

Ray looks down at his knee, and from this angle it’s almost like he’s not missing half of his leg. Then he moves, a little, and the pain shoots through it.

“I don’t need anything from you.” The words come out flat, but Ray can’t suppress the wince of pain whenever he moves, betraying the lie. It’s one that Ray wishes was true, though. “I don’t need your pity, and I don’t need you to take care of me.”

“Well, yeah,” Walt says, carefully, like he’s trying not to say anything wrong. He’s still smiling, a little, but Ray can’t begrudge him for it. Walt’s always smiling. Even in Bastogne. “You’re my friend, alright? That’s all.”

“Fine,” Ray says, and falls silent. He’s not trying to be sullen, or difficult. He’s not – there’s just nothing he needs less than to feel even more useless than he already does. It’s not that it’s Walt’s goal, it’s that he won’t be able to help it.

Of course, turning Walt down out of hand will just make Walt feel as useless as Ray does most of the time, so. So.

“How’s Brad?” Ray asks, half because he’s genuinely curious and half to change the subject to something less sensitive.

“Oh, you know,” Walt says. “Alive. Kicking. They made him First Sergeant after Bastogne – Fick insisted on it. He wasn’t half bad at it, either.”

Ray snorts, and rubs at his thigh with one hand. Walt is kicking at the dirt with his toe, looking at the ground as it gives beneath his shoe. There’s something he’s not saying, and Ray’s waiting for it.

“Let’s go back inside,” Walt says, instead, and Ray lets him off the hook, for the moment.

 

+

 

Walt comes in a few times a week, after that. The nurses love him, obviously, turning their smiles on him like flowers to the sun. Walt is polite and gracious, but never familiar, even though they obviously want him to be. Ray teases him about it, but Walt never budges.

Ray asks him where he’s staying, what his plans are now that he’s home, but Walt just sidesteps with a smile and a shrug. They’re learning where not to prod, what to let lie. Part of Ray hates that they have to, even as he’s relieved when Walt doesn’t push him.

Walt brings a book, and pretends that he’s not watching while Ray does PT. After, Ray either hobbles back to his room, or Regina gives them permission to go into the gardens. It’s like a weekend pass; only Regina gives the privilege, where Schwetje always took it away.

It’s fun, it’s great, but Ray can’t help but wonder why Walt is here. Not that he doesn’t want him, obviously, just that Ray assumes his family is missing him, and maybe his girl, if he’s still got one. Ray’s just not that important, in the scheme of things.

 _Dear Brad,_ he thinks, watching Walt talk to a young, dark-haired nurse. _Here I am, still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Are you? If you were here, would you know what he’s thinking? I doubt you’d even care. You don’t give a shit about that stuff. Anyway, you’d better come to the veteran’s reunion. Love, Ray_.

 

+

 

Ray is released from the hospital after another three months. Walt is waiting for him in the lobby when he crutches his way out. The sunlight is streaming in through the glass doors behind him, so Ray can’t see the expression on Walt’s face, but he supposes that it doesn’t really matter. He’s out. The war is over.

“Where are we going?” Ray asks, stopping for a quick breath. It’s hard to carry his bag and use the crutches at the same time, but he manages.

“You don’t want to go home? Back to Missouri?” Walt sounds puzzled, and Ray just shrugs. He thinks about his ma and his father and his sister. The new baby is probably walking a little by now. Maybe even more effectively than Ray is.

“Sure,” he says. “We can do that.” His parents will be happy to see him, and just as practical as ever. They’ll put him up for a few months, help him find a job, even. Ray can’t help it if he’s not sure he’s ready for that. “Sure,” he says again.

Walt shoots him a look, but Ray ignores it, mostly because anything he says will be too revealing. Better to avoid it altogether.

 

+

 

Walt drives, obviously. He’s found a beat up, mostly brown pick-up truck with rust climbing up over the wheel wells somewhere, and even though it rumbles instead of purring, it gets them on the road. There’s nothing on the radio, and Ray decides to talk about nothing instead of sitting in silence. He wonders at the logic that had him sent to Washington, D.C. instead of somewhere closer to home, and he talks about the terrible music he was forced to listen to in the hospital, and he counts cows. Walt mostly concentrates on the road. He laughs, sometimes, and tells Ray to shut the hell up, but mostly his brow furrows as he tries to keep the truck going the speed limit.

“Where did you find this piece of shit car, anyway?” Ray asks, just after they’ve passed the border into Ohio.

“Used to be my father’s, actually. I went home before I visited you. He wasn’t using it anymore, so he didn’t mind if I took it. It really is a piece of shit, but it was free, so I’m not going to complain.” Walt smiles, and his eyes crinkle up at the corners with his amusement. Ray wonders if there’s anything more to the story than that. He doesn’t ask, though.

“Always gracious, I see,” Ray says, his one foot propped up on the dashboard. “No wonder all of the nurses wanted to date you.”

Walt laughs, and pulls off the road when he sees the next rest stop. It’s just a diner sort of plopped off the side of the highway, but there’s a gravel parking lot, and the lights are on, so it looks habitable enough.

“I gotta take a leak,” Walt says, when Ray shoots him a curious look. “You hungry?”

“Sure,” Ray says. He almost forgets, as he slides out of the car and grabs his crutches, that most people aren’t used to amputees. The woman behind the counter doesn’t stare, but all twelve of the patrons do. Ray limps as fast as he can to the nearest booth, and waves of Walt’s unwanted but well-meaning help. He shoos Walt off to the bathroom – he’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself. That’s what the months of rehab were for. He looks around, and most of them pretend they weren’t ever looking. Ray will take it, even if it’s not much.

They eat greasy burgers and French fries, the kind of food that the hospital never had. Hospitals never have good food.

“What are you going to do when you get home?” Walt asks, popping a fry in his mouth. He looks intently at Ray while he chews, but Ray just shrugs.

“I’ve got no idea. What can I do? Something stationary that involves a lot of sitting, I guess. Maybe I’ll knit.” Ray thinks about all the work he won’t be able to do on the farm once he’s home. He feels a pang of guilt, but there’s nothing he can do about it. “Do you have plans?”

Walt shrugs, and looks down at his plate. He’s got a lake of catsup that’s slowly oozing over onto his fries. “I have this car, so. Maybe I’ll drive around the country. See the sights for awhile.”

To Ray, that just sounds like Walt doesn’t really want to go home. “The open road,” Ray says, instead of calling him on it. “Sound like an adventure.”

Walt laughs, but it’s not that humorous a sound. “Yeah, just what I need. More adventure.”

 

+

 

Ray wakes up with the sun, though he’s not sure exactly why. He and Walt had found a motel late in the evening; one of those small, slightly unkempt places off the side of the highway, cheap and nominally anonymous. Ray lies still for a few moments, but he quickly realizes what it was that woke him up.

Walt is curled up on the twin bed closer to the bathroom. He’s not even under the covers – they’ve been pushed onto the floor, pillows, top sheet and all. He’s still twitching, thrashing a little in his sleep. Ray can see the sweat on his skin, soaking through the material of his t-shirt in the center of his back.

 _oh_ , Ray thinks, and tries to find some anger left in him. There’s that part of him that sneers, _at least he’s got all his fucking limbs_ , but Ray knows that’s unfair. Enough people were sent home from combat stress that Ray remembers all about mental strain. It doesn’t mean that somewhere inside he doesn’t feel that way. Doesn’t think, _well, at least he can still walk_.

Ray watches Walt shift restlessly, making aborted sounds, like a wounded animal, in the back of his throat. There’s about a fifty/fifty chance that waking Walt up would be worse than letting him dream. Ray sits, crutches propped against the wall next to his bed, and just waits.

He holds out for maybe fifteen minutes before he just thinks _fuck it_ , and pushes off the comforter and top sheet, hopping over to Walt’s bed with one hand propped on the wall. The trip takes him a minute, certainly longer than he wants it to, but he drops onto Walt’s bed with a grateful sigh and no harm done. Walt’s still asleep, his mouth pulled down in a frown, his brow furrowed.

Ray shakes him lightly, a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, Walt,” he says. “Hey, wake up.”

It takes a few hard shakes, but then Walt’s eyes fly open, wide and shockingly blue. He flails blindly, whacking Ray in the shoulder with one arm, before the sense bleeds back onto his face.

“You okay?” Ray asks, peering down at him. Walt just clutches at him, pressing his face into Ray’s shoulder. Ray can feel the warmth of Walt’s breath against his skin, and is hit with a hard sense of déjà vu. He’s been here before, in the shit with Walt clutching at him for safety. He’s back in Bastogne, where it’s too cold to move or think and where the Germans blew his fucking leg off.

Ray gives Walt a few minutes, no matter how much he wants to just pull away and pretend that he doesn’t remember the feel of Walt’s eyelashes against his neck as the mortars slammed into the trees all around them.

 

+

 

They don’t talk about it, and so Ray just adds it to his mental list of prohibited topics. It’s ever expanding. It’s not an extremely healthy response, but it’s not like they’ve ever had to deal with this sort of thing before. Besides, they’re almost to Missouri. They won’t have to worry about it for that much longer.

To take up time, Ray starts singing again. Sometimes Walt will join in, but mostly he’ll just bob his head and hum along. Ray taps his fingers against the window and tries to remember songs from the past three years. He hasn’t had much time for music, really.

They pull into the long driveway up to Ray’s parents’ house just after the sun has set. Everything looks exactly the same – the paint peeling on the side of the barn, the gravel road, the too-tall weeds by the edges of the fence. The breath catches in Ray’s throat, and it takes him a few seconds to catch his balance. They haven’t called ahead. His parents won’t know he’s here.

“You okay?” Walt asks, peering at him. It’s an innocent question, but Ray’s not entirely sure he knows the answer. “We don’t have to go in yet.” It’s meant to be a reassurance, but it mostly just makes Ray feel weak and stupid; he can’t even face his fucking parents.

“No, no, it’s fine,” he says. His hands fumble on the car door, and he watches the screen door swing open, light spilling out from kitchen. His ma is in silhouette against it, and there’s a part of Ray that just wants to stumble out of the car and run into her arms. Of course, he can’t. He can’t. Instead he has to put his crutches on the ground and slowly slides out of the cab of Walt’s truck. He’s self-conscious, worried what she’ll think, what she’ll say. It makes him slow, carefully picking his way up the flagstone path to the porch.

She’s leaning against the doorframe, but her face is in shadow. Ray desperately wants to know what she’s feeling, what she’s thinking, but he can’t find a way to speak. The words just stick in his throat like hard candy.

“Who is it, dear?” His father’s voice from the kitchen. She doesn’t move, or turn, or reply.

“Ma?” he asks, voice tentative. She takes a step forward into the light, and Ray can see that she’s crying, biting her lower lip as she looks at him. He’s never seen her look so vulnerable.

“Joshua,” she says, and presses the heel of her palm against her mouth. She takes a deep breath, and Ray can hear the wetness of her breath sticking in her throat. Ray stumbles forward a step, and then she’s hugging him.

“Ma,” he says again, and closes his eyes, propping his chin on her shoulder. It takes him a few huge, shuddering breaths to get himself under control enough to pull back. He swipes at his eyes with the back of his wrist, and says, “Ma, this is Walt. He’s a friend of mine from the war.”

Walt, who has been standing uncomfortably by the car, starts, and then nods at Ray’s mom. “Ma’am,” he says, voice that mix of humble and serious he uses to win over new people.

“Oh,” Ray’s ma says, schools her face back into something almost normal. “I’m sorry, how could I be so rude? Come in, I’ll get you some supper and you can sleep in the guest room.”

“I couldn’t –” Walt starts, but Ray’s ma cuts him off with a look. She turns back to the house, sneaking a glance at Ray as she heads inside. He follows her more slowly, Walt pulling up the rear.

 

+

 

“Oh, no, Ray, don’t get up. I’ll fetch it for you.” Ray’s sister leaves with a smile, and Ray balls his hands into fists at his sides and bites the inside of his lower lip. He hasn’t been home for an entire twenty-four hours yet, but he’s already setting sick of being doted on and coddled. They always want to get things for him, help him up, make sure he gets inside, and while he knows that it comes from a good place, that doesn’t mean he wants it. If anything, it makes everything worse. He’s stranded on the couch and no one will let him leave. They treat him like the two-year-old brother he’s only just met for the first time.

Walt is watching him from the chair by the fireplace, dark circles under his eyes reinforcing Ray’s guess that he hasn’t slept, again. Ray’s parents had put Walt up in the guest bedroom down the hall, despite his protests, and so Ray spent the first part of the night listening for Walt’s breathy whimpers, and quiet sound of rustling covers. He’s not even sure he would be able to hear it, if it happened.

Walt will almost certainly not stay for long, and then Ray will be left defending himself against the overly forceful fussing of his kin. The idea is horrifying enough that Ray winces visibly, gaining him another coded glance from Walt.

This is not who he wants to be.

 

+

 

Ray dreams that he’s running. He’s speeding blindly through the trees, avoiding the clumps of snow that fall from the shaken branches and the clumps of pine needles that stick in his hair and on the back of his neck. There are bombs shaking the ground, jostling the trees as they skid toward the ground, and Ray is running –

It’s then that he remembers that he can’t run, that one of his legs is gone, and it’s like the realization makes it true. He falls face first onto the snowy ground, and when he flails upright again he can see the bloody trail in the snow where he’s been dragging his ruined limb. He’s got orders, he’s supposed to be watching the line, but he can’t find his foxhole, he can only crawl forward in the direction he’s been heading and hope it’s the right one. His ma is yelling from somewhere behind him, telling him to _slow down_ and to _be careful_ , and the snow is slowly freezing his fingers.

He wakes with a start, breathing quickly and desperately needing to piss. He lies flat on his back, staring at the ceiling and trying to ignore the phantom itch on the bottom of his foot. He’s shivering, though it’s not cold, and when he can’t ignore his bladder anymore he slides himself to the edge of the bed and grabs his crutches.

He stumbles down the hall to the bathroom, and relieves himself. As he makes his way back to his room, he can hear the sounds of Walt grunting through the firm wood of the door. He slows, wondering if he should intrude. He’s not sure what he can do, but Walt has stuck with him for months and not made him feel fragile, or weak. He owes it to him.

He slips inside the room and sits on the edge of Walt’s bed. He’s still no good at standing for long periods of time. Walt’s got one hand fisted in the covers and he’s sweating.

“Hey, Walt, you’re sweating like a pig,” he says, quietly. He doesn’t want to wake Walt up. “I’m going crazy here, though I know they mean the best. You’re going crazy anyway.” He pauses, watching as Walt tosses, shoving one of the pillows off of the bed. “Maybe we should just stick together.”

 

+

 

The next morning, Ray snaps. His ma is in the kitchen, cleaning up after breakfast, and his father is finishing up his coffee. His sister’s taken his little brother into town, and he’s here, sitting at the table, unable to even clear his own plate by himself.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, dear, it’s no problem,” his ma says, and bustles it off the way she does everything, efficiently.

“It fucking _is_ a problem,” Ray says. “I’m not helpless. I’m not dead. I’m a cripple, fine, but you don’t have to treat me like I’m useless.” His voice is almost flat, and his mother turns like she’s been hit. Ray almost feels bad, but then he really, really doesn’t.

“I’m not trying to make you feel useless,” his ma says, and his father puts his cup down with a clatter.

“Apologize to your mother, son, and watch your language.” His father’s voice is stern, and Ray just laughs. He’s not seventeen and throwing rocks at the neighbors barns anymore.

“I’m sorry, Ma. But the nurses in the hospital had to sponge bathe me for longer than you’d like to think about, and they still made me feel less useless than you do.” Ray takes a deep breath, and glances at Walt, who is staring at the kitchen counter like it’ll tell him something important. “Look, I know you don’t mean it, but you can’t help it, either. I just – I can’t be here right now. Not until I have everything under control. Okay?”

His ma just looks at him. His father says, “It’s your life to live.” It’s about as close to agreement as his father gets.

“Walt?” Ray asks, and he should have probably thought about this first, or asked Walt. Too late now. “What do you say to me bumming around on your great American adventure?”

Walt looks up from the counter, and shrugs, eyebrows raised. He still looks like shit, bruised and unhappy. “Sure, Ray. You know you’re always welcome.”

“It’s settled then,” Ray says.

 

+

 

They leave just before lunch, but Ray’s mother packs them some food for the road, and Ray doesn’t think about how they’re going to make money, or pay for places to sleep, or anything except that he’s leaving home again. He’s leaving, and he’s not sure when he’ll be back.

“Ready?” he asks Walt. They’ve got nowhere to be. Walt’s hair is growing out, and Ray wonders how long it’ll take for him to lose the pinched, sleepless look he’s had since the hospital.

“Ready,” Walt says. “Let’s get out of here.” Ray hoists himself back into the cab of the truck, and watches the tires kick up dust on the gravel road away from the closed screen door of his childhood home.

“The open road,” Ray says for the second time, and leans back in the passenger seat.

“Shut up, Ray,” Walt says, but he’s smiling a little. Ray can tell. “And find something to listen to on the radio.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Ray says, and sketches a salute. The sun is beaming in through the window, and nothing even hurts that much. He’s not alone. It’s more than he’s had in a while.


End file.
